Cheating teachers should not get amnesty

15 February 2015

Given the seriousness of the offence, teachers found guilty of assisting matric students to cheat should not be offered amnesty, as the Education Department is currently intending to do. Rather disciplinary action should be instituted and allowed to run its course.

It has been reported that teachers who aided matric pupils who participated in the cheating or ‘group copying' scandal will be given full indemnity if they confess to the truth.

Their actions showed contempt for the quality of education their learners received, and disdain for the consequences that might be suffered by the learners involved - who might well have been suspended from writing matric for 3 years.

Every one of the teachers involved in committing fraud, and who caused their learners to commit fraud, by presenting exam answers that were supposed to be compiled by their learners, should be held accountable.

The Employment of Educators Act 76 of 1998, which refers to teachers employed by the state, is very clear in a case such as this.

Section 17 of the Act deals with "Serious misconduct" and reads:

(1) An educator must be dismissed if he or she is found guilty of - (a) theft, bribery, fraud or an act of corruption in regard to examinations or promotional reports;... or (f) causing a learner or a student to perform any of the acts contemplated...

(2) If it is alleged that an educator committed a serious misconduct contemplated in subsection (1), the employer must institute disciplinary proceedings in accordance with the disciplinary code and procedures.

There is no discretion permitted, and rightfully so. The Department could and should institute disciplinary procedures against such teachers and report them to the South African Council for Educators (SACE).

The DA does not believe that Minister Motshekga is within her legal rights in offering amnesty. In addition she is setting a very dangerous precedent.

I will write to the Minister to implore her to apply the law, and to ensure that cheating teachers are disciplined and receive appropriate sanctions for their decision to help their pupils compromise themselves and possibly their futures.

Statement issued by Annette Lovemore MP, DA Shadow Minister of Basic Education, February 15 2015

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